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Condition of Wetlands in the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska: Water Quality, Physical Habitat, and Biological Communities

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Condition of Wetlands in the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska: Water Quality, Physical Habitat, and Biological Communities Condition of wetlands in the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska: water quality, physical habitat, and biological communities A report prepared for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation June 2, 2018 Rebecca Shaftel, Matthew Carlson, Dan Bogan, and Leslie Jones Alaska Center for Conservation Science, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK, 99508 Table of Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Methods ............................................................................................................................... 2 Study Area ........................................................................................................................ 2 Study Design .................................................................................................................... 2 Field Sampling ................................................................................................................. 6 Results and Discussion........................................................................................................ 6 Physical Habitat ............................................................................................................... 6 Water Quality ................................................................................................................. 12 Biological Communities................................................................................................. 15 Plants .......................................................................................................................... 16 Diatoms ...................................................................................................................... 23 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 26 Literature Cited ................................................................................................................. 28 ii Tables Table 1. Targeted wetlands sites.......................................................................................... 4 Table 2. ADEC cleanup levels and NOAA screening levels for metals in soils. ................ 12 Table 3. Number of sites and water quality samples. ....................................................... 13 Table 4. Biodiversity indices for wetland biological communities. ................................... 17 Table 5. Wetland plant indicator species for coastal versus inland sites and random versus target sites. Significant indicator species (p-values < 0.05) with indicator values ≥ 0.5 are shown. ................................................................................................................................ 18 Table 6. Variables significantly (p < 0.05) correlated to wetland plant ordination. Abbreviations in parentheses are used for the ordination. .............................................. 19 Table 7. Diatom indicator species for coastal versus inland sites and random versus target sites. Significant indicator species (p-values < 0.05) with indicator values ≥ 0.5 are shown. ................................................................................................................................ 23 Figures Figure 1. Map of wetland sites in the Arctic Coastal Plain of NPR-A. ................................ 5 Figure 2. Example of wetland habitats in low relief polygonal tundra on the Arctic Coastal Plain of NPR-A. ................................................................................................................... 7 Figure 3. Box and whisker plots for wetland habitat variables for targeted, inland, coastal, and all sites combined (NPR-A). Boxes include the 25th – 75th percentiles of the data, whiskers extend to 1.5 times the interquartile range, and individual points are outliers. ........................................................................................................................................... 10 Figure 4. Box and whisker plots for soil metals for targeted, inland, coastal, and all sites combined (NPR-A). Boxes include the 25th – 75th percentiles of the data, whiskers extend to 1.5 times the interquartile range, and individual points are outliers. ........................... 11 Figure 5. Box and whisker plots for wetland water quality parameters for targeted, inland, coastal, and all sites combined (NPR-A). Boxes include the 25th – 75th percentiles of the data, whiskers extend to 1.5 times the interquartile range, and individual points are outliers. .............................................................................................................................. 14 Figure 6. Wetland plant NMDS ordination. The top figure shows floristic similarity between sites (numbers) relative to Axis 1 and Axis 2 and the bottom figure shows sites relative to Axis 1 and Axis 3. N = Kjeldahl nitrogen, TP = total phosphorus, peat = count of plots with peat moss, moss = total moss cover, CEC = cation exchange capacity, and soil P = soil phosphorus. ................................................................................................... 22 Figure 7. Wetland diatom ordination. The top figure shows diatom compositional similarity between sites (numbers) relative to Axis 1 and Axis 2 and the bottom figure iii shows sites relative to Axis 1 and Axis 3. N = Kjeldahl nitrogen, TP = total phosphorus, and SC = specific conductance. ......................................................................................... 25 Appendices Appendix A. Continuous Distribution Functions for Water Quality Parameters Appendix B. Plant and Diatom Taxa Lists iv Introduction The Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska is a unique ecoregion with abundant freshwater resources bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean and to the south by the foothills of the Brooks Range. Wetlands are ubiquitous on the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska because the permafrost layer inhibits drainage leading to saturated soils. Both migratory shorebirds and caribou utilize wetland habitats on the coastal plain. Wetlands and shallow ponds provide abundant insect resources for feeding shorebird adults and chicks (Brown et al. 2007). Nutrient rich wetland plants, such as sedges, emerge early and provide food during the critical post-calving period for the caribou herds on the North Slope of Alaska (Wilson et al. 2012). In the past 30 years, annual temperatures have increased by 2.7˚C and precipitation has increased by 50% in Utqiaġvik, Alaska with the most rapid temperature increases occurring in fall (Wendler et al. 2014). Observed changes to wetland habitats include increased shrub cover (Stow et al. 2004, Tape et al. 2006), increased plant biomass (both above and belowground, Hill and Henry 2011), decreases in pond area (Andresen and Lougheed 2015), decreases in total area due to deepening of the active layer and higher evapotranspiration during the growing season (Woo and Young 2006), and increases in salt-tolerant vegetation communities along the coast due to storm surges and land subsidence (Tape et al. 2013). Human activities on the Arctic Coastal Plain, such as military installations and oil and gas exploration and development, can also alter wetland habitats by placement of fill, alterations to hydrology, and pollution from point sources. Military activities include the Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar stations along the Arctic Coast, constructed in the 1950s, which were converted to the Northern Warning System (NWS) sites of today. The Arctic Coastal Plain has some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. Production in Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in North America, began in 1969. Other major potential oil developments include the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) in the western coastal plain and the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern coastal plain. Annual lease sales have been held for parts of NPR-A since 1999 and the 1002 Area has been recently opened by congress to oil and gas leasing. The objective of this project was to assess the condition of freshwater resources in the Arctic Coastal Plain ecoregion of the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska (NPR-A) (See Figure 1). Probabilistic sampling of freshwater resources was used to assess the status of and changes in quality to these valuable habitats. These habitats and resources are intrinsically dynamic and are also affected by direct and indirect anthropogenic activities.. Information garnered from these surveys will establish a clear benchmark of the reference condition for NPR-A habitats as there are currently minimal human disturbances (Stoddard et al. 2006). 1 The project was conducted as part of the National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS), which is a program designed to monitor the condition of fresh and coastal waters across the country. In Alaska, NARS is implemented through a collaboration between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, and the University of Alaska Anchorage. This report summarizes physical habitat measurements, water chemistry samples, and plant and diatom communities collected from palustrine emergent wetlands sampled in 2011. Methods Study Area The Arctic Coastal Plain ecoregion of NPR-A extends over 10.8 M acres from the Arctic Ocean on its western and northern boundaries to the foothills of the Brooks
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